by John on August 26, 2011
I was struck by this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, even though I’m not sure I understand what he meant.
In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Maybe Emerson was referring to that why-didn’t-I-think-of-that feeling when you see that someone else connected one or two more dots than you did. You thought about a challenge, and maybe you were close to resolving it, but you lacked a key insight to pull it all together. You decided your approach wouldn’t work, but someone did make it work.
If that’s what Emerson had in mind, it’s puzzling that he speaks of “every work of genius.” It would be incredibly arrogant to think that you almost came up with every great idea you see. Maybe he means that we recognize genius best when it relates to something we’ve struggled with.
What do you think Emerson meant? When have your rejected ideas come back to you?
by John on August 18, 2011
Another quote from Tristan Gylberd:
If you always go where you have always have gone and always do what you have always done, you will always be what you have always been.
Related post:
Odd little bookshops
“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing missing is freedom.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
by John on April 25, 2011
Interesting philosophical aside from a technical book:
The software field — really, any scientific field — tends to advance most quickly and impressively on those few occasions when someone (i.e., not a committee) comes up with an idea that is small in concept yet enormous in its implications.
From Learning the bash shell
by John on November 22, 2010
From George Pólya:
There are two kinds of generalizations. One is cheap and the other is valuable. It is easy to generalize by diluting a little idea with a big terminology. It is much more difficult to prepare a refined and condensed extract from several good ingredients.
Related post:
Jenga mathematics
by John on September 20, 2010
From Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis:
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.”
by John on September 2, 2010
“In times of change, learners will inherit the earth while the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” — Eric Hoffer
“The university’s ‘hidden curriculum’ … has always been teaching its own importance.” — Anya Kamenetz
James Marcus Bach recalls the following from his seventh grade orientation.
At one point the grumpy man said, “We consider you to be young adults now, and we expect you to behave as such.” … No one would say that unless the opposite was true. I had a terrible sinking feeling.
If someone told me that he considered me an adult, I’d be dumbfounded. Of course I’m an adult. Why tell me that? We only say such a thing to manipulate children. Most children, however, do not catch the irony as Bach did.
From Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse:
I confess that I am a dreamer. Someone once called me just a dreamer. That offended me, the just part; being a real dreamer is hard work. It really gets hard when you start believing your dreams.
by John on January 26, 2010
From Herbert Hoover, mining engineer and 31st President of the United States:
The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his sort-comings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned.
Related posts:
Architects versus engineers
Catalog engineering and reverse engineering
by John on January 11, 2010
